Charles Lyons-Burt 
- Mobile is federal zero trust’s biggest blind spot, Green says, since device management alone can’t detect threats in real time
- Small language models surprised Green most this year, driven by warfighters operating in degraded environments
- Zimperium runs AI on-device, not through the cloud, to protect data and stay operational at the tactical edge
Traviss Green has spent more than two decades building public sector business at some of the defense industry’s largest names, from a 15-year run at Lockheed Martin‘s information technology division to leading McAfee’s Department of War and intelligence agency accounts through a period of roughly 455% territory growth. He later served as chief operating officer of Millennium Corporation, where he helped grow revenue to $105 million, before spending two years as regional vice president at Elastic. Green joined Zimperium as vice president of public sector in April, where he now leads the company’s strategic growth across federal and state and local government markets.
ExecutiveBiz caught up with Green to discuss the industry’s shift toward on-device artificial intelligence, the federal mobile security gap he sees as most underappreciated, and how Zimperium balances compliance requirements with adaptive, nation-state-level threats.
ExecutiveBiz: What’s a development in AI over the last year that genuinely surprised you? Bonus points if it specifically relates to government or GovCon.
Traviss Green: The rapid adoption of AI and machine learning at the edge of the network, and the shift from large language models to small language models, or SLMs, which allow for innovations that improve mission mobility without sacrificing accuracy or performance.
In the federal space, everyone assumed AI readiness required constant, ultra-high-bandwidth cloud connectivity. But warfighters and remote federal workforces frequently operate in low-bandwidth, denied or degraded, or DDIL, environments. Seeing on-device AI and ML evolve from a bespoke enterprise capability to a core requirement in forward-deployed, mission environments was a massive shift. It underscores the importance of reimagining a future where the personal device ecosystem is unified for mission assurance, expanding what we traditionally viewed as a network endpoint to include mobile and the Internet of Things as we look to defend the operational environment in real time.
EBiz: How is Zimperium deploying AI? What do you see as its unique enablers, and what are its downsides?
Green: At Zimperium, our AI approach centers on running intelligent, adaptive machine learning models natively on the mobile device rather than relying solely on cloud lookups. The mobile phone or tablet is often the unmonitored entry point for sophisticated threats, so our AI operates locally to detect zero-day exploits, rogue networks, and AI-driven phishing in real time.
This extends security from the enterprise out to the tactical edge. Cloud-dependent security often fails in degraded, low-bandwidth, or air-gapped environments. By executing AI on-device, we provide uninterrupted protection to federal warfighters and civilian personnel without latency or privacy trade-offs — no user PII ever leaves the endpoint. Our approach is, and will always be, that your data is just that: your data.
Building AI models lightweight enough to run locally without impacting device performance or battery life requires constant optimization. But for public sector leaders prioritizing true zero trust, weighing that performance-versus-productivity trade-off is an essential and ongoing consideration worth making to guarantee local security and resilience.
EBiz: What’s a cybersecurity vulnerability in the federal government that is under-discussed?
Green: One of the biggest blind spots right now is the edge computing environment and mobility’s role in truly achieving zero trust. Federal agencies have significantly invested in maturing zero trust architectures across cloud, identity, and traditional desktop and endpoint environments. Yet an increasing number of federal personnel interact with sensitive agency data, approve MFA prompts, and communicate via mobile devices — often protected by nothing more than basic mobile device management, or MDM.
MDM is a device-management tool; it is not an on-device mobile threat defense capability. It doesn’t inspect for zero-day mobile phishing, or mishing, rogue cellular networks, or malicious app behavior. Attackers know this and treat the smartphone as a prioritized path of least resistance to steal credentials and pivot into secure cloud networks — a risk especially pronounced given the growing trends of both shadow and weaponized AI, which remain blind spots across most mobile enterprises.
Closing this gap requires moving beyond administrative and compliance-based management toward dynamic, on-device threat defense. As guidelines like NIST SP 1800-35, “Implementing a Zero Trust Architecture,” make clear, mobile devices are vital endpoints that expand the enterprise boundary and require continuous, dynamic posture verification. An enterprise’s endpoint security strategy isn’t complete unless it adequately addresses the mobile workforce. We must extend real-time threat detection to every device, whether it’s sitting on a desk in Washington, D.C., or forward-deployed at the tactical edge.
EBiz: How do you balance compliance-driven cyber programs with the realities of adaptive, nation-state threats?
Green: Compliance ensures you’re meeting yesterday’s standard; adaptive defense ensures you survive tomorrow’s attack. To best support our federal government customers, the goal shouldn’t be choosing one over the other, but integrating them so that compliance naturally flows and continuously evolves from strong, mission-threat- and mission-risk-based operational defense.
At Zimperium, we balance this by building security that enforces zero trust principles at the device level, rather than relying solely on periodic, network-dependent audits. As a global leader in mobile threat defense and mobile application security, we see firsthand the growing trend of mobile as adversaries’ vector of choice. That’s why we continue to invest in leading-edge zLab research into global mobile threats and host annual events such as the Mobile Threat Landscape series to share best practices that defend and protect critical business and mission operations.
Who Is Traviss Green?
Green is vice president of public sector at Zimperium, leading the company’s strategic growth across federal and state and local government markets. His career spans more than two decades in public sector technology, including 15 years at Lockheed Martin, five years at McAfee directing DOW and intelligence agency accounts, three years as chief operating officer of Millennium Corporation, and two years as regional vice president at Elastic before joining Zimperium in April 2026.
What Is Zimperium?
Zimperium builds mobile security technology for enterprise and government customers, focused on detecting threats such as mobile phishing, malware, app vulnerabilities, tampering, device compromise, and zero-day attacks. Founded in 2010, the company is headquartered in Dallas, Texas. Its products run detection natively on the device rather than depending on cloud-based analysis, an approach aimed at maintaining protection even when connectivity is limited.
